With the jury two hours into the second day of deliberation in Stephanie McMillen’s attempted murder trial, a new twist came to life.
McMillen’s defense attorney, Jay Englund, moved that the judge declare a mistrial, and with no resistance from the prosecution, it was granted.
Whether or not the District Attorney will resubmit in the Columbia County Circuit Court to go to trial a second time is yet to be determined, the earliest details are likely to come through a conference scheduled for Tuesday morning.
The jury was in deliberation Friday when parties were called to the courtroom again. “The defense moves for a mistrial,” Englund told the court, basing the motion on “information related to jury issues.”
McMillen, 45, of Baraboo, was arrested on Sept. 13, 2012 on suspicion of stalking, obstruction of justice and attempted murder. Charges were brought following an incident when McMillen left Divine Savior Healthcare on the morning of Sept. 10, and drove to the home of Kimberly Tennier, the wife of a man she had been involved with on-and-off over the previous year, confronting her while in disguise, asking her to help look for a fictional lost cat on the property.
Jury deliberation began promptly at 9 a.m., then at 10:55 a.m. the various parties filed back into the courtroom and the attorneys went into the judge’s chambers. Ten minutes later, George was behind the bench and the courtroom was on the record again.
This is not the first juror issue that has come up in the trial. On the second day of the trial a juror was excused for having a family connection with one of the witnesses. By all accounts, the conflict was isolated to the single juror who had not mentioned anything besides to the baliff, who conveyed it to the judge. The result was seemingly a clean justification of the jury having 12 members plus two active alternates, allowing quick resolution of issues like that without having to invalidate an entire jury.
“The state agrees there are sufficient grounds and does not oppose the motion,” Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long agreed.
“This type of action is something taken by a court very reluctantly,” George told the court. He went on to describe the prejudice from the given issue as causing “irreparable” damage to the case.”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Englund said on his way out of the courtroom, asked about whether the whole process would be starting over. “We’re all disappointed and will just move forward from here.”
Without going into detail about the jury issue, George described the issue as impropriety within the jury, and that although declaring a mistrial is the last thing they want to do, reflecting on it further with more elaboration afterward only made him more confident that it was the right decision.
Bringing more questions into the future of the case is that if the District Attorney’s office were to decide to bring the case again, there is no way that it would be resolved before George’s retirement in August.
Consequently, the case would go to Judge-Elect Todd Hepler, there could be a request for transfer to another court, or it is possible that the court could bring George back as a reserve judge post-retirement. The last would seem unlikely for budgetary reasons.
Nonetheless, George expressed regret that by all appearances, he will not be able to see this case through to its end.